Beach Boys: Band hope Brian Wilson can still make music with them

Wilson is the co-founder and chief songwriter for the Beach Boys who emerged as part of the surf-rock boom in 1961 and built their reputation on sophisticated melodies and complex vocal harmonies.

After hits like Surfin’ USA, I Get Around and California Girls, the emergence of The Beatles prompted Wilson to steer the band in a more experimental, psychedelic direction.

His magnum opus was 1966’s Pet Sounds – widely considered one of the all-time greatest rock albums.

But his escalating drug use, combined with the pressure to keep creating ever more elaborate songs, led to a nervous breakdown and he began to withdraw from touring and public life.

Wilson was placed under a conservatorship once before, in the early 1990s, because his family fought to separate him from controversial psychologist Eugene Landy who they said exerted “undue influence” over his life, music and finances.

The case was triggered by the re-drafting of Wilson’s will in 1989 in which Landy was named as chief beneficiary, standing to inherit up to 70% of his estate.

By 1992, the Superior Court of Santa Monica had ruled that Landy must remove himself from Wilson’s life.

The court also appointed an independent conservator with “specific and limited powers over the artist’s affairs”.

Melinda was supposedly one of the chief instigators of that court case.

After her death last month Wilson said on his website: “We are lost. Melinda was more than my wife – she was my saviour.”

The couple married in 1995 and adopted their children Dakota Rose, Daria Rose, Delanie Rose, Dylan and Dash together.

Wilson also has two daughters, Carnie and Wendy, from his first marriage.